


Sherlock's Cat

by Baby_Fangirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:16:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baby_Fangirl/pseuds/Baby_Fangirl
Summary: John Watson does what he does best, saving lives, and burdens Sherlocks simple life with a kitten. Short one-shot.





	Sherlock's Cat

It was a bitter night in 221B Baker Street. One of the radiators was bust, half hanging off the wall from one of Sherlock’s many tantrums with the furniture; and one of the windows wouldn’t fully shut, letting the winters breeze whistle through the gaps in a forlorn melody that seemed to sing in despair. It had started to snow, and the icy flakes snatched up the road, breathing frost over the parked cars in the gutter.

But despite the fact that it was ever so cold inside, nobody noticed it except for Mrs Hudson, who would whirlwind up the stairs in a flurry and hover in the doorway in her dress and slippers before shivering and exclaiming that she could see her breath; resulting in a few long, heavy breaths that older woman had to test, proving the pearly white fog that escaped her lips.

Sherlock would never pay her any attention. He didn’t feel the cold; Sherlock Holmes rarely felt anything of interest at all, lounging in his arm chair, somewhere too far away, deep in his mind palace, to be dealing with anything as immature and unimportant as the heating.

And John was hardly ever there in order to experience the chill of the apartment, whenever he wasn’t by the detective’s side on a case, he was working, saving lives, being a good person. The darker haired man could never quite understand what drove Watson to do so much good; this was a sickly world after all, far from the relief of inner and outer turmoil even in the capable hands of John Watson. Sticking to his moral code was as useless as painting parsnips orange and calling them carrots.

Sherlocks sharp gaze snapped into focus when he heard the sneaky tell-tale sounds of the door shutting, and the pressure of Johns 154 pounds creaked the floorboards in a certain way that was distinct to his own movements. Sure enough, the shorter man instantly gave a weary smile as he turned around to face the other.

“Something’s different,” Holmes muttered reverently beneath his breath, instantly signalling out the coat that John was wearing was not the same that he had left in. “New Coat,” he observed, narrowing his light rendered gaze ever so slightly.

John nodded, glancing down at the new, warmer and longer coat. It was December now, and the London chill was no pretty, Winter Wonderland. It was fatal. He cleared his throat, looking back up at his flatmate. “Yeah, Guess how much?”

“Forty-two pound and… twenty, no, fifty pence,” the genius muttered as John still had a face of pure exhilaration.

“How-?”

“You never leave with more that a sixty in you pocket, a flaw of your short-term paranoia. Your coat is wet although being recently purchased, you were in walking distance from home, so you didn’t see the need to take a bus. You weren’t on the tube either because you left your card on the mantlepiece. Your coat is fairly good quality, and you didn’t want to overspend, so the only coat shop that has that brand for under one hundred is Mayfair’s.”

Sherlock took a breath before continuing.

“I happen to know that they’re reducing their sales because they’re closing down to water damage. Now when you walk there are three types of coins in your pocket, two two-pound coins, three one-pounds and a fifty pence, that muffles with the folded ten also in your pocket, which, My dear Watson, subtracted from your usual fayre is Forty-two pound and fifty pence.” He announced, rather pleased with himself, especially as he observed the twitch of an astonished grin that lit up his crime partners face.

“That- That’s incredible,” John stammered, entirely impressed as he sat down in the semi-adjacent armchair.

Holmes slowly nodded with an infuriating grin, “Yes, that, and you also forgot to remove the price tag that’s sticking out of your collar,” he informed with a tiny smirk that dissipated shortly after it had arrived. Annoyed, John snatched off the tag, just as a soft, high pitched sound came from within his coat, and Sherlock narrowed his icy gaze at the recently purchased attire.

“John… Did your coat just meow?” a voice like smooth, cold marble descended from Holmes’ colourless lips staring at the tiny bulge that now wriggled underneath the warm material of Watsons new coat. The Doctor timorously unzipped the jacket, carefully cradling a tiny, fluffy kitten.

“I found her half way down Dorset Square, near to death in snow. She was all alone and I couldn’t leave her Sherlock,” It was the smallest kitten that Sherlock had ever seen, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it… it was a feline, in his apartment, and John wanted to look after it? Raise it? Send it off to college? Cats were _not_ his speciality.

“You brought back… a cat?” Sherlock questioned in minor disbelief, his fingers clasping together on both hands as his elbows perched on each arm of the chair. He studied the weak furball with such an intense glare that John worried he was about to burn a telepathic hole right through his tiny little ears.

“No, I brought back an Alpaca. Well of course it’s a cat! Well… technically it’s a kitten, barely old enough to be away from her mother. If I didn’t rescue her, she’d be dead, Sherlock,” the darker haired detective pursed his lips as he shrugged his shoulders in careless abandon.

“Natural Selection,”

John finally tore his gaze away from the kitten that he was currently warming with his hands and stared at his friend with a confused glance as a paused silence settled between them for a mere moment. “Shut up and help me name her,”

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wincing at the prospect, “How do we know if it’s a _her_?” Another awkward second passed before Watson carefully lifted the mewling kitten onto its back, shortly putting it down on his lap again.

“It’s a her,” the shorter of the two nodded, a small triumphant grin tugging at his lips. He didn’t miss the way that his flatmate rolled his ice-blue eyes. “I’m calling her Jessica,” John proudly exclaimed, resuming stroking its little, grey, fluffy head.

The Detective sat forward and scoffed as he shook his head, a laugh tumbling freely from his throat. “Jessica? You can’t call a cat Jessica, that’s a person’s name. Cats names are like Fluffybutt, or something just as ridiculous,” he retorted, making his valuable point in trying to ward john away from the silly name.

For the longest of seconds, John Watson thought about it, until the metaphorical lightbulb lit up above his head, and he softly cradled the feline. “Welcome to the Family, Jessica Fluffybutt Holmes,” he grinned, carefully setting the cat on the carpet, and Sherlock instinctively tucked his feet up on the chair in case the tiny fluffball had a craving hunger for detective toes; and John moved into the kitchen to spoon some tuna onto a plate, all the while wondering why they ever had tuna in, nobody ate it.

Well, Jessica Fluffybutt would, and he set the saucer on the floor as the feline wobbled over and plonked her head into the fish. “Why? Why why _why_ do we have a cat? It’s not staying here. I’m allergic,” Holmes spoke all in one breath. John ignored him. Of course the doctor knew he wasn’t allergic to cat hairs. He himself had identified many cats hairs on the clothes of the clients that had visited this very apartment, and it had never bothered him. He sighed and tried again.

“Why does it have to be _my_ name tacked onto the end of that absurdity?” the genius complained with a similar aura of a whiny child. His gaze flickered between his friend and the walking hairball with fish on its whiskers.

John merely shrugged, hanging up his new coat and sat on the carpeted floor next to Jessica. “Because Holmes gets more respect than Watson does,” he whispered, resisting the urge to keep loving the kitten and let it eat in peace.

Sherlocks brow arched in all fairness, “That’s true,”

“Besides, it would only be cruel to have to call her ‘Jessica Fluffybutt Holmes Watson’,” the shorter man grinned up at his crime solving partner, something about the way that for once, Sherlock had no answers was amusing to him.

“Oh, _that_ would be cruel?” he sighed in exasperation, awkwardly climbing over the back of the chair to avoid coming into any nearby radius with the predatory feline. “I’m going to bed. And if it dies in the middle of the night, leave it on the kitchen table. I’ve always wanted to know how long it takes for fleas to know when to leave the dead host.” Sherlock yawned before disappearing through the door.

That night, Jessica Fluffybutt Holmes slept in a tiny ball at the top of John Watsons pillow.

When John came home after work at midday the next day, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was to expect. Sherlock had only mumbled some form of acknowledgment when he had bellowed for him to remember to feed Jessica, and that was it before he had shut the door. The little grey and white kitten was looking and feeling healthier after being fed and being warm again.

She was sitting on top of the table, looking rather smug with her tiny little self as Sherlock melted down around her, he was still in his striped pyjamas practically pulling out his midnight raven locks as her tor up pieces of paper, muttering words under his breath before he began shouting at john.

“I can’t solve it!” he stressed, ripping up the newspaper with fury as John took in the mess that surrounded them; and he wondered who had done the most damage, the kitten or the sociopath?

“Woah, clam down, what happened? When you can’t solve something you usually just stab it and move on!” Watson reminded. Mrs Hudson was terrified for the state of her mantle that was too often the victim of Sherlocks knife that had pierced the few cases which he had never managed to resolve.

For a moment Sherlock just stared at John with daggers in his icy gaze before it softened into almost helplessness, “I can’t solve the bloody cat!” he groaned and in a fit of worry, the Doctor lifted Jessica from the table and against his chest, just in case.

“She’s a kitten, what’s there to solve?” John defended, raising his voice softly in mild bewilderment, Jessica FB Holmes wasn’t another criminal case for Sherlock to pick into like she was some government investigation that the police agents couldn’t get their heads around.

Sherlock drove his fork down into the table, wedging the prongs in the wood efficiently as he sighed. “She yells if she wants to go out, and the second she’s out she yells to come in. She won’t eat out of her bowl but will pounce on the food that spilt on the floor. She can crawl into the bottom drawer of my cupboard and screams when she can’t remember how to crawl back out. She wants me to stroke her when she rubs on my ankles, and two seconds later she attacks my fingers because she no longer likes it… I’m perplexed by her many huge tantrums in such a tiny demonic body.”

John studied the darker haired detective all the while rubbing a finger underneath Jessica’s chin, her purrs vibrating loudly. “Sherlock, She. Is. A. Cat! There’s nothing to solve! This is what cat’s do,”

“It is rude and arrogant, it refuses to feel towards anyone and thinks she’s the most important thing in the world. She is a narcissistic asshole; she is lazy and expects the world to fall down at her feet… _paws_ ,” the detective listed, her lips pursing into a fine line.

Watson blinked. He wasn’t thinking of Jessica when Holmes was speaking.

“Well, that does sound familiar, doesn’t it?” John fixed his glare up at his flatmate with a subtly raised brow, grinning slightly at the confused expression on Sherlocks countenance that slowly morphed into realisation.

“Not _Me_!”

Jessica FluffyButt jumped onto the table and John sat down as well, pulling himself closer to his laptop as Sherlock fell across the sofa, grabbing one torn piece of newspaper to read… well, attempt to, instead his cold gaze travelled to the kitten that seemed overly interested in the keys that John was tapping on the computer.

His eyes narrowed.

“Are you writing this on your _blog?!_ ” Sherlock exclaimed, his voice piquing into a question.

John froze, slowly glancing over his shoulder to his flatmate. Jessica leapt down, bounding up to the detective with a happy little grin. “No?”

“Yes you are! ‘All I want fur Christmas… The Case of Santa Claws?’ Oh my God John,” the darker haired man groaned, flinching when the tiny fleabag jumped up onto his legs and started padding up towards his stomach, before curling up in place. “… John, help me. Get it off…” Sherlock didn’t dare move, not wanting to disturb Jessica at any cost.

The Doctor laughed, subtly taking a picture of Sherlock with his new best friend with a very quiet chuckle resonating from his dry lips, pocketing the device before continuing typing.

“Your fans will love the idea of you having a soft side,” Watson, grinned, hearing the groan mumble from the others throat. It’s a while later when he attached the image to his site and sent the profile to his blog before closing his laptop, spinning around in his chair.

Sherlock was fast asleep, laying across the couch with a softly purring Jessica, sleeping by his hands.

John Watson smiled fondly, Jessica FluffyButt Holmes was keeping Sherlock warm on that bitter night in 221B Baker Street. And it was beautiful.


End file.
